>
> The text: hWS DE EPOREUONTO KATA THN hODON, HLQON EPI TI hUDWR, KAI FHSIN
> hO EUNOUCOS, 'IDOU hUDWR, TI KWLUEI ME BAPTISQHNAI?'
>
> I haven't done a search for FHMI in the GNT, but I'll say that this is
> consistent with classical Attic style's use of FHMI to indicate a direct
> quotation; more often than not, I believe, when LEGW is used, the cited
> quotation is introduced by an untranslated hOTI. This sort of convention
> may seem strange to moderns who have punctuation clearly delineating direct
> citations, but it was one way for ancient Greek to indicate the distinction
> clearly, and I think that's what we have in this instance.

Carl,

I looked into this a little more. Smyth 2017(a) states that FHMI is used with
hOTI more often after the classical period. BDF 397(3) states that FHMI is
hardly ever takes hOTI in the classical period but does occasionally in the
Koine period. I followed this up with a search in Accordance and found that
FHMI is used with hOTI in Rom. 3:8, 1 Cor. 10:19, 15:50 (the same examples
cited by BDF). My search with LEGW followed by hOTI produced something on the
order of 200 hits. Therefore, the pattern that Carl has pointed out still
seems to be valid for NT usage.

A Follow on question:

One question that came up in my brief research was the distinction between the
use of FHMI as an infinitive and as a finite verb in the historical present.
Both BDF and Smyth spend some time talking about how the infinitive of FHMI is
used when introducing speech. I don't think they clearly explained the
difference between the infinitive use and the finite use when introducing
speech. Could anyone expound on this?